Lol, it isn't homophobic to have an opinion.

It's a homophobic opinion

"Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality"

"negative attitudes"

I don't understand where the difficulty is with this new rule. We're not here to stop discussion, and we're not here to discriminate. If you disagree with gay marriage for whatever reason, and you explain it, then that's fine. That leads to an encouraging discussion and there's no slurs or insults there. If you were to jump in and say "I can't stand seeing these f*** getting married", then that's something that we will stamp down on firmly. 

This applies to religion, it applies to race, it applies to gender etc. We aren't here to discourage discussion, we're here to stamp out hate speech and direct, firm attacks completely so the site is enjoyable for everyone.

Padib, I really think you've jumped the shark on this one. And I'm honestly disappointed in your comments towards the team.

There's a huge difference between an overt discriminatory comment and a civil disagreement with a lifestyle.

Excuse the language from here on out, I'm going to make some examples:

Example of an overt discriminatory comment: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=6688462

That is the sort of posts we're going to hit hard from the get go. There is no room for them in any sort of debate, and there is no room in this site for the user who makes them. Will it result in an automatic permaban? Not necessarily, but we will look upon posts like that much more harshly than say a "lol fanboy" comment.

And we haven't forgotten religious groups, it's right there in the rule: "or any other sort of hatred towards a group of people(s) will not be tolerated, and will be met with firm moderation."

So posts like "Christians are backwards neanderthals who need to die out." will also be met more harshly than other petty name calling that litters the forums (thankfully the latter exists much more than the former).

Suffice to say, here's the ultimate take away: hate speech will be met harshly, no matter where it comes from. That's what the rule is saying. You can disagree with homosexuality, or Christians, or any group of people that you want to disagree with. However, when doing so, you better be sure that you're being civil and respectful about it (and back up what you say with evidence and facts that add to the discussion in a positive way).

And know that every post that is moderated by the means of criticizing a lifestyle isn't necessarily hate speech. Unwarranted criticism isn't necessarily hate speech, despite both being moderatable (with varying ban severity of course).

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"Discrimination is completely up to the interpretation of the mod and of the user making the report. A user with influence could help cause this rule to be abused. We already know who that could be (see bold in quote above) and who it could be targetted at."

The report is made by any user. That's where their participation in moderation ends. It is now up to the team to discuss and make a decision on whether the post in question should be moderated. There is no "user with influence", and I'm bummed that you would even suggest that.

Somehow, you've completely missed the point of the rule, and have already brought your judgment before we can even put it into practice. I believe in my team. I know that they will treat this issue very seriously as well as fairly. I know that we will act as a team together, and not be swayed by the opinions of others. We will do what we can to make sure that the community of gamrConnect is as diverse and healthy as it can be.

This seems great..... as long as rules are intrinsically applied to every member without exceptions, without subjective judgments and with different tolerance levels for certain users - like, for example, other moderators, writers, collaborators etc.
But that would be asking too much, wouldn´t it?

VGChartz staff is held to the same standards as all members of the site. In fact, since we represent the site, we need to go above and beyond. All staff members can reported, and yes, moderated if needed.

Even ioi was banned... although that's another story.

Good to know. From time to time we see clear examples that there wasn´t a real balance/concordance among moderators about what was and what wasn´t offensive, about what was and what wasn´t  flaming/flooding, about what was and what wasn´t discrimination etc.

Hope that there will be a consensus rather than just subjective, personal judgments.

Let me just say this... I agree with you and with  your suggestions.

We tell our mods again and get to "GET ON MODCHAT!" (you can ask them ). The more moderators there are to discuss a potentially moderatable post, the better decision we make. Every permaban needs the consensus of the team in order to go through. And since we have a diverse cast of characters, we can get multiple opinions and views that helps sway one way or another on highly contested issues (like, for example, the hate speech rule which we've been talking about).

I'm actually working right now on updating the Mod Guidelines page (hasn't been done so since the Machina days). Gives every mod the ability to have a refrence point on what to do in situations and how to best work as a team.

Thanks again.  Good job.  Sorry if my words seemed a little harsh